Hmm. Cindy has spicy brains.

Also? I love the word ghastly. I think I first heard it in the Really Rosie song, "The Awful Truth" -- "He had bloodshot eyes and a ghaaaastly smile."

Doesn't any one else think that 'Hallows' could be a place-name or place-name element? That's the other meaning I'm familiar with for it.

Am-Chau, that was my thinking as well.

Ghastly is a great word! And also, I notice, an adjective that ends in -ly.

I think I first heard it in the Really Rosie song, "The Awful Truth" -- "He had bloodshot eyes and a ghaaaastly smile."

My childhood anthem! I was listening to it on my iPod earlier today.

I wonder how filming it will change the impact of the scene, since the last book will be out and we'll know wheter Snape's a goody or a baddy.

I'm curious how they are going to catch movie Snape up to the point of book Snape, since they already downplayed a lot of the character's history in the movie of PRISONER OF AZKABAN. I'm memfaulting, but was the scene where Dumbledore basically forced Sirius and Severus (heh - never quite noticed how close those two's names are before) to reconcile at wand point in the movie of GOBLET OF FIRE? I don't remember it being in the movie, but I only saw it once (and at that point in the story I was surprised how much the big death affected me in the movie vs. the book where it barely registered for me).

Anyone know any good first-hand accounts of physical rehab? I could use them for something I'm writing.

A strange story for fans of "The Master and Margarita": [link]

Thanks for the link, Ginger. That makes me kind of sad and boggled.

Religious fanatics vs. art again. Oy vey.

Speaking of religion and books this interview with Karen Armstrong is fascinating.

Didn't a lot of people say God is beyond language? We could only experience the glimmer of God.

That's what the Buddha said. You can't define nirvana, you can't say what it is. The Buddha also said you could craft a new kind of human being in touch with transcendence. He was once asked by a Brahman priest who passed him in contemplation and was absolutely mesmerized by this man sitting in utter serenity. He said, "Are you a god, sir? Are you an angel or a spirit?" And the Buddha said, "No, I'm awake." His disciplined lifestyle had activated parts of his humanity that ordinarily lie dormant. But anybody could do it if they trained hard enough. The Buddhists and the Confucians and the greatest monotheistic mystics did with their minds and hearts what gymnasts and dancers do with their bodies.

You're saying these ancient sages really didn't care about big metaphysical systems. They didn't care about theology.

No, none of them did. And neither did Jesus. Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate. In the Quran, metaphysical speculation is regarded as self-indulgent guesswork. And it makes people, the Quran says, quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. You can't prove these things one way or the other, so why quarrel about it? The Taoists said this kind of speculation where people pompously hold forth about their opinions was egotism. And when you're faced with the ineffable and the indescribable, they would say it's belittling to cut it down to size. Sometimes, I think the way monotheists talk about God is unreligious.